available light in your house

[dostacos]

well my wife got me hooked on watching house porn [ HGTV on cable all about remodeling houses, redoing rooms etc. and frankly this is the BEST way to describe the channel 229 on Direct TV 😀]

She has been talking about redoing the house for a while and I have now bought in and we are pushing ahead. new floors, paint, new kitchen new windows. the least I can do is document the process.

SO the question is this, should I use available light, flash [nah] or extra lighting with umblrellas.

I think the 21MM lens might be the better choice to cover as much area per shot, or try the beast shooting at or near 1.2

also available:
25MM non coupled [until May 😉
28MM 1.9
50MM 1.5

I guess I should shoot in color, but I am partial to B&W

 

[Doug]

Sounds like a fun project to shoot, Dan... Getting into the season for longer daylight, might help in the available light department. Also, you might use some strategically placed large white reflectors; maybe flat board leaning against the wall or your umbrellas.

 

[NL2377]

haha, get yourself a spirit level for that camera then!!!

 

[Anupam]

Nothing like a view camera to shoot interiors. But for ligting with 35mm, I'd use available light on a tripod and also experiment with bouncing manual slaved flashes.

-Anupam

 

[planetjoe]

Honestly, my opinion for this kind of work (having documented some myself) is that a digital platform is a good tool in this context.

Some of the reasons I feel this way are the quick turnaround, easy distribution (for sharing and/or consultation), and instant review: you don't want to miss a stage of the work because you didn't know your equipment/process wasn't up to snuff that day.

(Note: I'm a notorious slow-turnaround guy when it comes to personal projects, so this is just based on my experience. YMMV.)

Recently, while looking around at homes for sale, I used my 10D extensively to build a portfolio of reference images. I was seriously considering the relatively inexpensive "Zenitar" 16mm fisheyes available on the 'bay for the Canon EF mount, among others.

Of course, homes are so expensive these days, we've had to give up that notion - it's like we'd have to sell our firstborn to raise the cash, and we kinda like the little guy, so no.

Anyway, it sounds like a worthwhile project, and I honestly like the idea of a view camera...glutton for punishment? Perhaps.


Cheers,
--joe.

 

[lmd91343]

Replace the bulbs in the house light fixtures with GE photo-flood bulbs during the shoot. I think they come in 75W and 250W varieties. Use the 75 watt size. They are daylight balanced so they will match the light coming in the window and color film.

You can turn on your light, have the fixture in the photo, and have it provide matching light! No orange cast.

They get very hot. They also have a short life. Only turn them on when metering or shooting. They cost $3-4 per bulb. I run them 5 minutes at a time and they last years.

You can buy special porcelain hi-temp fixtures with reflectors for for less than $30 to use with the 250watt bulbs. I use them for macro(SLR) and portraits because I like constant light, not flash.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...179&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...506&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation

 

[dostacos]

haha, get yourself a spirit level for that camera then!!!

I guess you have looked at my pictures😱

you may be joking but that is not a bad Idea....

 

[dostacos]

it sounds like an excuse for getting the 15 or 12 😀 I think I will be using 3 cameras Canon Digital, the 4M with B&W and the R2 with color and I guess I can start some shooting now to get an Idea if the 21 will cut it or [snicker, snicker honey I NEED this lens to document the work] get the 15MM

 

[vicmortelmans]

Maybe you shouldn't bother that much for the purpose it serves. There's no commercial issue, right? Only memories to keep.

I also did it a couple of years ago: just screwed my widest lens (24mm su-mu-co-takumar) on my camera (at that time the Spotmatic F - no rangefinders yet), screwed the camera on the tripod and went through the house from top to bottom, shooting one film only.

This remembers me that I should do it again by now! Quite some things have changed otherwise unnoticedly.

Groeten,
Vic

PS. it must have been the same time that I went into rangefinder world, because I read an article somewhere that promised wide angle lenses to be more commonly available for RF than for SLR camera's, because of the shorter film-to-lens distance design issue. I must say that I feel a little disappointed about that particular motivation, as my su-mu-co takumar 24mm came for ~100$, while I've seldom encountered a rangefinder counterpart for less than 500$!

 

[Xmas]

First paint all the ceilings white, beat fill in material your gonna get.

Noel

 

[Ronald M]

Bounce light from any cheap source into a ceiling/wall/corner or off a white ceiling. It don`t get better in that for any money

 

[dostacos]

I think I will shoot the digital for possible insurance issues [just in case] and do a lot of playing with the Bessas' just because....